The present report summarizes researches and
discussions conducted by members of the expert group within the
framework of the Bulgarian anti-corruption initiative Coalition 2000 established in 1997.

The report is dedicated to one of the most serious
problems of the Bulgarian transition towards market economy, stable
democratic institutions and legal state. The exploding growth of
trans-border crime during the last 12 years has led to the
emergence of criminal infrastructure, developed and maintained by
criminal groups and semi-legal "power groups," which have appeared
in the mentioned period. The trans-border crime in Bulgaria is a
part of the new network of international organized crime, which was
established after the end of the Cold War and which is closely
connected to the regional channels of smuggling and trafficking.
Smuggling (including drug smuggling) and trafficking are in
particular the main sources of income for organized crime in the
country.

It is impossible to successfully fight the
trans-border crime in the country without a determined effort to
counter systemic corruption within the law-enforcing and
law-protecting institutions. Enormous part of the criminal acts and
irregularities concerning import and export of goods, drugs and
weapons, as well as illegal trafficking of human beings, is
conducted through unlawful cooperation with customs officers,
employees of the National Border Police Service and other state
institutions, responsible for border control. Corruption networks
are part of the systemic smuggling or of the so-called smuggling
channels, and the funds for bribing state employees represent
"production costs" for organizers of smuggling.

Without doubt, it is difficult to present an
accurate assessment of the discussed problems, due to the lack of
information about the exact parameters of smuggling, in particular
of the drug smuggling, and about the real scale of corrupt
practices. Hence the huge importance of indirect indicators like
marketing researches in regard with the presence of particular
goods on the market, and methods for comparison of such data with
official customs statistics for import and exports of the same
goods. Apart from these methods, of particular importance is the
role of export analyses, reporting on informal "price-lists" of
corrupt services, as well as of the scope and value of the realized
smuggling deals and operations.